California's top air regulator is pushing back on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief's assertion that the state is failing to curb harmful air pollution, amid an escalating fight with the Trump administration over clean car rules.
In an Oct. 9 letter, California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols pointed to "many inaccuracies and misleading statements" in a Sept. 24 letter from EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler threatening to sanction the state if it does not work to reduce a backlog of plans to meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, or NAAQS.
The EPA's Sept. 24 letter was delivered less than a week after the agency finalized a joint rule revoking California's long-held authority to set its own greenhouse gas standards for vehicles, prompting 23 states to sue over the move the following day. That rule was issued even as four major automakers representing 30% of the U.S. auto market voluntarily agreed to follow California's greenhouse gas standards for cars and light-duty trucks, which are only slightly less strict than Obama-era standards the EPA has proposed to freeze.
Claiming that California is failing to carry out its "most basic tasks" under the Clean Air Act, Wheeler said in his Sept. 24 letter that California has "the worst air quality in the United States" with 82 nonattainment areas and 34 million people living in areas that do not meet the NAAQS, which regulate six different criteria pollutants.
In addition, Wheeler claimed that California was responsible for a backlog of 130 state implementation plans, known as SIPs, that "appear to have fundamental issues related to approvability, state-requested holds, missing information or resources." Urging California to withdraw any unapprovable plans and "work with the EPA to develop complete, approvable SIPs," Wheeler warned that failing to do so could trigger sanctions that include a prohibition on federal transportation projects in certain parts of the state.
In her Oct. 9 letter, Nichols said Wheeler incorrectly tallied 82 nonattainment areas by counting a single area repeatedly if it is not in attainment for multiple increasingly stringent air quality standards set under the NAAQS. The greater Los Angeles area, for example, was counted five times, she noted. Nichols also asserted that almost two-thirds of the state's backlogged SIPs are awaiting action from the EPA. The backlog is largely the "result of staff shortages, competing administrative priorities, and a lack of clear guidelines emanating from headquarters bureaucracy."
Meanwhile, Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Jack Speier of California on Oct. 10 urged the EPA's Office of Inspector General to open an investigation into possible "irregular interference" by administration officials to "single out" California. The same day, nearly 600 former EPA alumni including former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy called on the House Oversight Committee to investigate the Trump administration's recent actions toward the state. Those requests follow an Oct. 3 letter from Democratic U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris of California asking the EPA Office of Inspector General to investigate the motivation behind a Sept. 26 letter from Wheeler alleging water quality violations in San Francisco.
An EPA spokesperson Oct. 10 dismissed the notion that politics are at play. "Highlighting that California has the worst air quality in the nation along with other serious environmental problems is not a political issue," spokesperson Michael Abboud said in an email. "EPA expects California leaders to share its concern for the protection of public health."
